Motivating a Teenage Homeschooler

It isn't always easy to motivate my fifteen year old to get his school work done.

I have 'unschooling' tendencies so I'm willing to give him flexibility as far as when he does his work and what he does while he works (watch television, listen to his ipod) but in early May, it was time to take a pulse and see where he was at.

Uh oh... he was nowhere near where he needed to be.

I believe in letting kids experience practical consequences. If he were in public school and had fallen this far behind, he'd be facing Summer School. But my threats of long summer days of school work brought little results.

So then my eyes fell on the most precious things in his life. The ipod, the playstation, the brand new Mac computer with it's internet gaming payload.

Continuing with my practical parenting rules... if a person doens't get a good education, he doesn't get a good job. Without a good job there are no ipods, playstations or brand new Mac computers.

So rather than threaten, I simply suggested to him that unless he devoted the appropriate number of hours to his education everyday, he would find that all of those items can vanish into Mom's closet.

Since then five sections have been completed in record time :)